Download or read book A Not So Sacrificial Maiden written by Kerridwen Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2023-02-07 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five years ago the Evil Wizard Henig destroyed Taridawil, turning the prosperous province into a Black Desert. One year ago Karana's merchant parents were slain by Henig's foul minions as they took her to be betrothed to a lord's son. Now, seventeen-year-old Karana has emerged from struggling to survive a brutal winter in the Forest of Ryylyn - a full year on her own with no human contact - only to discover that the foul wizard has demanded that the King turn her over or the rest of the Realm will follow Taridawil's fate. Compounding the problem is that Karana is now the head of her powerful merchant House and has responsibilities that reach far beyond one small Realm. Saving the Realm without ending up as a Sacrificial Maiden is... going to be a challenge...
Download or read book A Not So Simple Mission written by Kerridwen Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2023-07-05 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Evil Wizard Henig is dead. The Province of Taridawil has been freed from his curse. Surely, now Karana can hang up her shield and return to her real job as Head of the most important merchant House in the world. There's just one or two small problems: The unpleasant Lord Jaycoff of Mountainmeadow has a contract requiring Karana to marry one of his sons – though not Sir Ivan, her erstwhile Knight-Companion. Karana still doesn't understand why Ivan abandoned them to face Henig without him. And every noblemaiden in the Realm is angling to marry her other Knight-Companion, Sir Kefen, now that he is to be crowned Duke of Taridawil. Nevermind that Kefen actually kissed Karana on the turret of Taridawil Keep right after the pair of them slew Henig, broke his spell, and freed the province. And... nevermind that Kefen has been making sheep's eyes at Ivan for as long as she's known them. And vice versa. What they need is to let everything settle down and become old news, so a simple little mission for the trio of Knight-Companions to escort the Princess Royal to the Holy Isle to seek the Great Goddess' Blessing on her future reign should be the perfect getaway... Right?
Download or read book An Entirely Unexpected Revelation written by Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2024-02-29 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Back Blurb: She's earned her shield in a quarter the time it usually takes. She's slain the Evil Wizard Henig to save the Realm and extract vengeance for the murder of her parents. She's taken the reins of her far-flung merchant empire - including the Metreedis' Secret and Ancient Mission. And she's managed to navigate a solution to falling in love with both of her Knight-Companions. Karana is surely due a break... But Wind and Wave are no respecters of competence... or are they? Supposedly only those the Goddess really wants to see are allowed to come to the shores of Her Blessed Isle ******** Teaser: "You must ask the Goddess to heal him. That's a fatal wound, Karana. His skull is cracked and blood pools against his brain." "No!" Karana gasped, her strength quite wrung out. Kefen lay unmoving, his head in her lap, the huge purpling bruise standing out from his forehead. "To each their time must come. Perhaps it is simply his time." The words were almost harsh, but the tone somehow carried a compassion that was... beyond human. "No!" Karana cried again. "It can't be!" "And why not?" the strange, silvery woman asked, seeming merely curious. "Because - because-" Words failed the knightess, and she bent her head. "Because?" "Because I don't want him to die," Karana whispered. "We never want those we cherish to die," the silvery woman said calmly. "And yet they all do. Why not this one? Why not now? What is he to you that you would ask the Great Goddess to save him?" Karana shook with tears she could not shed. "He is my Bound Companion." What else could she say after all? It was Ivan's ring on her finger. All Karana had of Kefen was an unsigned contract under review by a coterie of lawyers. And kisses and... more... and a lifetime's worth of promises in eyes that were molten chocolate when they met hers...
Download or read book Meztli Sacrificial Maiden written by Ross Richdale and published by Purrbooks. This book was released on 2015-11-16 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1530 AD Spanish Time, Meztli and Cualli are saved from an Inca human sacrificial site where virgins are left to die to appease their gods because conquistadors invaded their lands. Zolin, Meztli's childhood friend has been sent by Hermit Tupac to rescue them, which he does. They must now follow a perilous journey along ancient Inca trails through the mountains to interior lands and the safety of free Inca towns. Etalpalli, one of the seven priests who brought the virgins to the sacrificial site has an agenda with loyalty to nobody but himself. He murders the six other priests who accompanied him to the site and on learning that two of the three virgins are still alive, attempts to find them. Conquistador Capitán Buena Giraldo, commander of the sector of the Inca Empire where Meztli and her friends live has more interest than just converting locals from their heathen ways. He wants to find a rumoured lost gold mine in the area. He teams up with Etalpalli who lies about his knowledge of where the mine is when really his aim is to find Meztli to enslave. On their way to the east, Meztli and her two friends are met at a junction in the trail by Urco from Cualli's village. He has been sent by Tupac to tell them that all the lands have been conquered by the conquistadors and there is no safe haven through the mountains. Instead they must follow the strings and knots that Incas use to communicate instead of a written language, to a secret cave that goes under the mountains to a hidden valley and golden pyramid. There they will be safe. But are they? A far greater threat catches up with them. It is smallpox, a plague brought by the conquistadors that is devastating the local population. Only a few adults survive. For some unknown reason the conquistadors are immune and Inca children also have a high survival rate. After travelling through the cave, Meztli and her friends arrive in the secret valley of Ehuraythak and golden pyramid to find that the entire population of adults have died from the plague and only children have survived. These are led by two twelve-year-olds, Palia and Ekko who soon welcome the four adults and the tiny community becomes self-sufficient. Meanwhile, Tupac learns that a new order of fanatical priests have arrived to replace the original ones in the local temple who died with the plague. Their solution is to sacrifice all the children and the few remaining mothers at the next full moon. Tupac is too old to be able to stop this latest sacrifice himself so sets out to find Zolin, Urco and the maidens to ask them to return to the sacrificial site and rescue the latest victims. On the way he is attacked, not by the conquistadors but by rogue priests including Etalpalli. His llama is killed and he is shot by a musket that the conquistadors have brought to their land but manages to fight them off by using his slingshot. His one thought now is to get to the pyramid but with a musket ball in his shoulder he is weak and knows that if the ball is not removed he will die. Only sheer willpower keeps him going through the cave. Back at Ehuraythak, Palia and Ekko notice someone coming down the trail. They alert Meztli and Tupac is rescued. Though extremely weak he survives and tells the four that they must return to the sacrificial site to rescue the mothers and children before the next full moon due to rise in only two weeks. Meztli and her friends begin a new journey back in a race against time through hostile territory controlled by the conquistadors and rogue priests. Their success depends on the help of others and sometimes the enemy become almost friends. The cost though, is gold and a lost gold mine that Capitán Giraldo believes is still in the area. Does this mean that the pyramid at Ehuraythak must be surrendered or is there another gold mine somewhere? Do they reach the forty children and adults about to be sacrificed in time? All will be revealed in this latest Ancient Ancestors novel.
Download or read book Out of the Woods Hopefully a Knightess of the Realm Novella written by Kerridwen Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2023-10-16 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Forest of Ryylyn is a place of legendary danger: bandits, wild animals… as well as magickal beings and possibly even Gates to other worlds. Sixteen-year-old Karana can vouch for at least the first three. She was on her way to a betrothal when her caravan was attacked by robbers and… things that certainly didn’t seem human. Her mother hid her in a secret compartment of their carriage, and miraculously she wasn’t found. But now she’s the only survivor and the King’s Road that they were traveling on seems to have vanished… Can Karana actually make her way out of the dreaded Forest and back to civilization… before she either starves or is found by other inimical creatures? Meet Karana before she became a squire in this prequel to A Not-So-Sacrificial Maiden: Book One of the Knightess of the Realm.
Download or read book Thony Goes Astray in the deep dark and dangerous Fairy Wood written by Kerridwen Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2023-09-23 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Running away from home in order to save his kingdom was a Gallant sort of thing for a Crown Prince to do. A self-sacrificing sort of thing. Maybe even a brave sort of thing. Definitely Proper Princely Behavior. Right? And there should be some pretty awesome adventures as Thony looks for his princess (whom he’s too young to marry yet anyways, so there’s plenty of time before any gross stuff like that). And he’s starting out in the Fairy Wood which has all sorts of amazing and scary stories about it. Other people have all sorts of adventures in there. Unfortunately, Thony’s adventure also involves an annoyingly superior stable-girl (his best friend, **sigh**), a grumpy unicorn, and an all-too-easily-freaked-out horse…
Download or read book The King s Champion written by Kerridwen Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2024-01-01 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “You will have no firstborn to rule after you She will never conceive your firstborn – or at least not first.” The last words of the Evil Wizard, Lord Prydeen, have hung over King Damien and Queen Genevieve for five years. Five years, wherein Damien has sought to rebuild the Realm, inspiring and requiring a return to honor and noblesse oblige among his corrupt and canny noble class. Five years, whence Genevieve has restored three of the Five Lost Provinces to Ilseador's banner, negotiating by dint of the army at her back – and her own formidable reputation as a warrior. Five years... and ten heartbreaking miscarriages. And then Prydeen had added those other words that either allow for a kernel of hope... or are the grindstone with which to destroy King Damien's hopeful new reign. “You have a Champion of a problem, young king.”
Download or read book The Pirate King Book Three of the Chronicles of Ilseador written by Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2024-04-22 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wedding and coronation are over – just in time for King Damien to fight off a devastating ice-storm, pirate-raid, and evil sorceress who threaten to destroy his Realm. *** Back Blurb: The wedding and coronation are over. Queen Genevieve is well enough to attempt another pregnancy at last. It’s time to proceed with the secret plan to conceive an Heir to the Throne. But a devastating ice-storm is bearing down on the Ilseadoran capitol city of Emeralsee. King Damien suspects Evil Wizardry at work. With all the highest nobility of the Realm trapped in Emeralsee, Damien must battle Nature Itself to save his Realm and his people from an ice-storm that seems somehow targeted to him, personally. And that’s not even to mention the pirates converging on vulnerable, ice-locked Emeralsee… ****************** Teaser: “Thank you, Captain. “You and your men are to stand guard at the entrances to this hall. Do not enter until Sir Loveress lets you in. If that takes longer than a full day and night... inform Duke Elsevier that he is to support King Jason in all ways.” Sir Tim was shocked. “Damien... my King… you can’t be serious...” “You have your orders, Captain Ancellius,” Adam Loveress growled. “Yes, sir!” Sir Tim responded automatically to his former Captain. As the echo of the doors closing faded away, Adam turned to. “So, you think none of us are going to make it out of here alive?” “No,” Genevieve said firmly, “exactly the opposite.” “So, what am I here for then?” Adam demanded. “This...” the king held out a gem on a slender chain to Adam, “will end what life is left in my body that remains.” Adam, in the act of reaching for the proffered jewel, froze. “What?” Damien swallowed. “I need to access the Realm at a deeper level than I have since the very first time it Bound me. And it nearly consumed me then. Our people don’t need a breathing body of a king withering away without a soul. The jewel will stop my heart without leaving any external marks. No one will know what you did.” “And you just carry this thing around all the time just in case?” Adam muttered, staring at the now-ominous-looking faceted red stone.. Damien glanced back at him. “No. I altered that pendant on the way here from the Council chamber.” He put his arms around his silent wife. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to her, then turned to Adam. “This is why you have to be in here, Adam. There’s no one else I trust for this. But the part about you not coming out – that was just to scare Tim into moving. “Nothing should happen to you.”
Download or read book The Pale Sorceress written by Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2024-08-20 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Damien sacrificed himself to save his ice-bound city from pirates and sorcery. Now he must endure captivity and learn the sorcery he lacks in order to win free and get back to his wife, his unborn child, his friends… and his Realm that is still facing an unknown threat. ********** Back Blurb: King Damien sacrificed himself to save his ice-bound city from pirates and sorcery. Now he is captive to the ungentle whims of the evil sorceress, Azella the Unpitying. Her magickal ability exceeds his own. Damien’s only hope to win free and go home to his soul-bonded Queen and unborn child – and his still-threatened Realm to which he is also Bound – is to persuade Azella to teach him what she knows. Azella is willing to teach him… for a price. The question is whether Damien can give her what she wants – without following her down the path of Evil Wizardry… Like his grandfather before him… This epic fantasy explores the complex interactions of Magick and Philosophy, Means and Ends, and… CHESS… Want to start at the beginning? Book One of the Chronicles of Ilseador: The Rebel Duchess is available in print and eBook at all fine online retailers! ******** Teaser: “You’ll do.” A smile that Damien was all too familiar with curled Azella’s lips. “You’ll more than do, in fact. My sources hadn’t told me how handsome you are. I shall quite enjoy this, I think.” Damien tried not to roll his eyes. “This beard...” She stroked his chin. “I assume you usually keep it a bit more trim. I usually prefer my bedmates to be cleanshaven. But then, they are usually too young to grow a proper beard. Perhaps I shall make an exception.” “Perhaps you are making an assumption, lady sorceress,” Damien said dryly. “No,” she said calmly. “You are no innocent child, Damien. You know full well the Power that is raised through sex. You will be my Apprentice. You will share my bed. And you will do whatever else I require of you.” He looked back at Azella just as calmly. “I have sworn to my wife that I would touch no other woman in that way. And since I also know that the Power raised is proportional to the joy found in the doing, it won’t do you much good to compel me.” Those blue-grey eyes sparkled. It wasn’t – quite – anger. Nor amusement. It was... challenge. Damien suspected that the sorceress rarely found something she wanted that she could not immediately bend to her will. He suspected that was why she had wanted him in the first place. “Oh, I won’t have to force you to make love to me, Damien. You’ll soon be begging to do so.”
Download or read book The Fall of Taridawil written by Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2024-05-27 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before Karana won her shield… Before she spent a year alone in the forest… The Evil Wizard Henig destroyed Taridawil… …and the younger child of Duke Randall was sent – all unwilling – to Tallspire to become a page and earn his shield. Meet Kefen and Ivan as children… Discover the story behind how Ivan fought half their class… Watch how they figure out what friendship means… And learn what really happened to bond them so closely together in this touching tale of friendship, resilience, and caring. ****************** The Fall of Taridawil Story Collection includes: - Turns of a Page – how Kefen and Ivan met, how Ivan fought half their class (and why), and how they ended up becoming so close. - In A Masterful View, we peek into Master Felerico’s viewpoint on the boys - Of Pride & Princes takes a look at Henig’s original threat to King Theolore - We get into Queen Marlerite’s head in Sorrows of a Queen - And the collection finishes up with an ‘outside’ view of the whole situation from… Rufous in All on the Same Page ****************** Teaser: The small, dark-haired boy – no, ducal-prince, dammit, and that was how Kefen was going to keep his chin up – swallowed hard and began to turn back into the stall for a last measure of privacy before he had to go out there and show the world how a Saralath handled things. But a movement to his left caught his eye. Another boy was standing in the aisle of the stables, watching him silently. The boy was tall and golden-haired, with eyes that were almost too blue to be real. Eyes that were puzzled as he met Kefen’s own dark ones. After a moment of looking at each other, Kefen realized the other boy was dressed as he himself was. So. Another page. And tall as he was, something about the other child nevertheless suggested to Kefen that he was also new here. He waited, but the other boy said nothing. And when Kefen lifted an arm to rub his tears off on his sleeve and it broke their gaze, the other boy turned and began walking away. Curious, and drawn for reasons he couldn’t have explained, Kefen followed him.
Download or read book Thony and the Much Anticipated Adventure Book One of the Prankster Prince written by Kerridwen Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2023-06-05 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It wasn't fair. Princes were supposed to go on adventures. Instead, Thony's older sisters had gone off on The Quest and Left Him Behind. In Aldyrwald, of all places. I mean, yeah, it was their home and Thony was Crown Prince and all, but seriously? Aldyrwald was the boringest, most insignificant place in the world. In any world. And Thony's efforts to “liven things up a little” are always so completely underappreciated. Things start looking up with the arrival of Amanita, a mysterious foreign girl who also likes to play pranks, but refuses to share anything about her past. Befriending her – and saving her from the consequences of her own hot temper – somehow lead to Thony getting treated as more than just a boy. But now his entirely unmysterious parents, Queen Annabel and King Bill, are acting like there's some Deep Dark Secret... ...and that it has something to do with Thony...
Download or read book The Homeschooling Parent Teaches MATH written by Kerridwen Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all worry about our kids learning math. Even if the kids are in school, there’s always a concern. Sometimes it’s about the kid’s concern… sometimes it’s about their teacher’s concern (parent-teacher or otherwise). But a lot of the time it’s about US. It’s about our own math-phobias – those ‘fears, dislikes, or aversions’ that we picked up from our own math experiences and that we inadvertently pass on to our kids. We don’t want them to be afraid of math – we know that limits their opportunities and makes their lives harder and costs them more money – but we just can’t help it. This book is here to help you deal with your own math-phobias and come to – if not outright enjoy math, to at least appreciate it and be able to convey it to your kids without passing on the fear. Kerridwen Mangala McNamara is NOT a ‘math-lover’ but she is a math-appreciator and has worked through most of these issues herself. Let her help you along your homeschooling journey and show you how to fight the Fear-of-Math monster so that it no longer intimidates you – or your kids!
Download or read book An All Too Surprising Homecoming A Knightess of the Realm Novel written by Mangala McNamara and published by Rising Dragon Books. This book was released on 2024-06-28 with total page 679 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Karana and her fiancés are headed to her home-city of Wave on the Great Goddess’ orders, in order to be married… after they deal with pirates and a certain problem for Lord Andros of Wave – who just happens to be her foster-uncle. ********** Back Blurb: Wave – oldest and largest city on the Merutian Sea. Wave – renowned for its beauty and its markets. Wave – Karana’s home. For three long years, Karana has longed to go home. Now she – and Kefen and Ivan – are on their way. But home is never the same as when you left it… This epic fantasy concludes the Heir’s Journey and leads into the next Knightess of the Realm mini-series: The Secret of Dragon Mountain. Explore the mysterious connections between Magick and Economics, Empire and Ethics, Love… and Dragons! ******** Teaser: “Sais against a broadsword, laddie-buck?” Karana crouched down and made a come-hither gesture with her dagger. The young pirate grinned, showing white teeth in his bronzed face, continuing to spin his strange, short weapons around in a dazzling display. He wriggled his hips at her, saying something that made about half the pirates roar with laughter. They were men, all of them, Ivan noted, all but their chief, the woman with the bandana in her hair. Karana let her sword dangle carelessly from her fingers, and rested her dagger hand on her hip. “Is that t’best ye can do? Make pretty patterns in t’air? Or do ye use those things more often for something other than fighting?” The youth’s face turned red beneath his bronze, but he didn’t make a move. “Is he yers then, mistress? Which o’ ye gets to play wi’ his precious toys? Or are ye the type t’ share?” The knightess lowered her sword, and stood in a relaxed posture. She looked past the boy at the woman in the bandana – ah, Karana had marked her, too. Ivan began to wonder nervously if she was pushing this too far, and gathered himself to rush to her aid if they should swarm her. This last suggestion apparently needed no translation. The woman in the bandana looked amused, but the young pirate was scowling as his mates snickered. Karana laughed in the pirate lad’s face and said a few words in a soft and sibilant tongue... ...and the boy lost his temper and flew at her, his metal rods whirling.
Download or read book Bodies of Pain written by Scott E. Pincikowski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study provides a much needed re-evaluation of the role of pain and suffering in Hartmann von Aue. By critically and carefully combining traditional philology with modern theoretical analysis, drawing on theorists such as Mary Douglas, Michele Foucault, Norbert Elias and Elaine Scarry, the author shows how the 'body' is symbolically structured in Hartmann's work to create a distinctly medieval signification system of pain. This system is analysed through an examination of the physical body and social body of the court, and the harmonious and refined image of courtly society as depicted in Hartmann's work where it is shown that the very ideological system that informs courtly life causes suffering in both the physical and social bodies.
Download or read book The Teller written by John Clegg and published by Grosvenor House Publishing. This book was released on 2023-07-06 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Teller is a tale set in the late Bronze Age, told by an itinerant storyteller to members of an Iron Age tribe living on a defended hilltop c 405 BC in the region now known as the Welsh Marches. It describes survival during worsening weather and how they sustained themselves on what little was available. Apart from when luxuries such as meat, fish, wheat, barley and peas, were obtainable, the rest of their diet was barely nourishing, similar to what would now be described as foraging fare. Central to everything, was the might of bronze and those controlling its manufacture, plus woven into that control was the power of the Seers, 'those who know,' intermediaries between the spirit world and the people. These small power groups holding sway of production of the vital metal and supposedly forces of nature, courtesy of the holy men, gripped the numerous tribes in their thrall. Then slowly emerging, with the likelihood of bringing the whole edifice crashing, came the knowledge of iron. The main family in the tale, coped better than most with prevailing conditions and also began to question accepted wisdom. Their story involves battles against injustice, slavery and wild tribal incursions, told in a conversational, unassuming manner with archaeological details dropped in where relevant. To bring the characters to life, the author took the bold step of using fairly contemporary dialogue, minus of course, modern words and phrases that would jar and those abounding from recent centuries that could not possibly have been known by a storyteller plying his trade, Mid-Iron Age, plus of course, all present day measures of time and distance were off limits. Hopefully, the reader will feel as if offered access to their escapades and lives unfolding, without them even realising they are being observed.
Download or read book Mythological Narratives written by Anna Lefteratou and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-12-04 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the bold, beautiful, and faithful heroines of the Greek novels and their mythical models, such as Iphigenia, Phaedra, Penelope, and Helen. The novels manipulate readerly expectations through a complex web of mythical variants and constantly negotiate their adventure and erotic plot with that of traditional myths becoming, thus, part of the imperial mythical revision to which they add the prospect of a happy ending.
Download or read book Dwelling in Possibility written by Yopie Prins and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dwelling in Possibility cuts across conventional boundaries between critical and creative writing by featuring the work of both women poets and feminist critics as they explore and exemplify the relationship between gender and poetic genres. The contributors suggest new ways of thinking and writing about poetry in light of contemporary questions about history and identity. Most of the contributions are published here for the first time.
