Book Review: The Wicked Day by Mary Stewart

The Wicked Day by Mary Stewart

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I like this part of the book, "You and I, Emrys,"she had said, giving him the boyhood name Merlin had used for him,"have let ourselves be blinded by prophecy. We have lived under the edge of doom, and feel ourselves now facing the long-threatened fate. But hear this, Emrys: fate is made by men not gods. Our own follies, not the gods, foredoom us. The gods are spirits, they work by men's hands, and there are men who are brave enough to stand up and say; "I am a man; I will not."

All throughout the book, it has been mentioned that Mordred will be Arthur's bane and that has plagued them and haunted them. What I like is that even with these foreseen, Arthur and his queen still loved and accepted him. What's sad is that even if Mordred was totally loyal to Arthur, because of this prophecy, he was seen only to be Arthur's bane and nothing more.

I was touched by the line I quoted above because if only they have not thought of Mordred as that, then the ending of Arthur's kingdom might have been different.

Personally, I really don't believe in prophecies or fortune tellers to be exact. I believe in just living your life with faith in the real living God. I think that is all one needs to be able to live a full and contented life.



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All About the Book
Now, the spellbinding, final chapter of King Arthur's reign, where Mordred, sired by incest and reared in secrecy, ingratiates himself at court, and sets in motion the Fates and the end of Arthur....

About the Author

Lady Mary Stewart is a popular English novelist, and taught at the school of John Norquay elementary for 30 to 35 years, but has now retired.

She is one of the most widely read fiction writers of our time. The author of twenty novels, a volume of poetry, and three books for young readers, she is admired for both her contemporary stories of romantic suspense and her historical novels. Born in England, she has lived for many years in Scotland.

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Book Review: Unnatural Exposure by Patricia Cornwell

Unnatural Exposure by Patricia Cornwell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Don't let jealousy bite you because it can destroy you. Be content.

This is the first Patricia Cornwell book I've read and I somewhat like it. I love the main character's attitude, namely Dr. Kay Scarpetta. I like that she's firm with a lot of gentleness and kindness to people who needs it.

I hate Ring, too bad the book doesn't say if he's been punished. Maybe that will be in the next Cornwell book.

I just don't like how the book ended. It's like it's cut short and I had no inkling whodunit because if memory serves me right there was no mention of Dr. Phyllis Crowder. Maybe I'm used to other books like this where they give clues as to whodunit and you have to make a choice only to be proved wrong in the end.

No matter, I am still going to read other Cornwell books. That's definite.

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Book Summary
Virginia Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has a bloody puzzle on her hands: five headless, limbless cadavers in Ireland, plus four similar victims in a landfill back home. Is a serial butcher loose in Virginia? That's what the panicked public thinks, thanks to a local TV reporter who got the leaked news from her boyfriend, Scarpetta's vile rival, Investigator Percy Ring. But the butchered bodies are so many red herrings intended to throw idiots like Ring off the track. Instead of a run-of-the-mill serial killer, we're dealing with a shadowy figure who has plans involving mutant smallpox, mass murder, and messing with Scarpetta's mind by e-mailing her gory photos of the murder scenes, along with cryptic AOL chat-room messages. The coolest innovation: Scarpetta's gorgeous genius niece, Lucy, equips her with a DataGlove and a VPL Eyephone, and she takes a creepy virtual tour of the e-mailed crime scene.

Unnatural Exposure boasts brisk storytelling, crackling dialogue, evocative prose about forensic-science sleuthing, and crisp character sketches, both of familiar characters like Scarpetta's gruff partner Pete Marino and bit players like the landfill employee falsely accused by Ring. Plus, let's face it: serial killers are old hat. Cornwell's most vivid villains are highly plausible backstabbing colleagues like Ring, who plots to destroy Lucy's FBI career by outing her as a lesbian. Some readers object to the rather abrupt ending, but, hey, it's less jarring than Hannibal's, and it's the logical culmination of Cornwell's philosophy about human nature. To illuminate the novel's finale, read Cornwell's remarks on paranoia in her Amazon.com interview. --Tim Appelo (from goodreads.com)

About the Author
Patricia Cornwell ’s first novel, Postmortem, is the only novel to have won the Edgar, John Creasey, Anthony and MacAvity awards, and the Prix du Roman d’Adventure in one year. Her second and third novels, Body of Evidence and All That Remains, attracted equal critical acclaim and became international best-sellers, establishing the author as one of the top crime writers. She received the Gold Dagger Award for her fourth, Cruel and Unusual.

A former award-winning reporter for the Charlotte Observer, Patricia D. Cornwell worked for over six years as a computer analyst in the chief medical examiner’s office in Virginia, where she witnessed hundreds of autopsies. This experience inspired her to create Dr Kay Scarpetta, the tenacious, intelligent and compassionate Chief Medical Examiner.

She has written a total of 18 novels featuring Dr Scarpetta, as well as 3 police procedurals set in North Carolina; 2 cookbooks and 1 children's book.

She lives in Richmond, Virginia and New York. (from goodreads.com)




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Book Review: Not That Sort of Girl by Mary Wesley

Not That Sort of Girl by Mary Wesley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I love the book! It focuses mainly on extra marital affairs, which I do not condone. But the author wrote it in a manner that's light and I like that. I think this situation is happening in reality wherein people would not end up marrying the people they love but chose to be practical and chose financial security. The heroine in this book however was pushed because of pressure form those around her. I like that Milo and her weer given the chance to be together happily in the end. And that was a long wait. At least, there's still true love in this book and it still won in the end.



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At the age of 18, Rose met Mylo at a party, and the two fell instantly in love. But only a year later, Rose married the wealthy, secure Ned. Now 50 years later, Ned has died, and Rose is looking back on her two relationships.(from goodreads.com)

About the Author
Mary Wesley, CBE (24 June 1912 – 30 December 2002) was a English novelist. She reportedly worked in MI5 during World War II.[citation needed]During her career, she became one of Britain's most successful novelists, selling three million copies of her books, including 10 best-sellers in the last 20 years of her life.

She wrote three children's books, Speaking Terms and The Sixth Seal (both 1969) and Haphazard House (1983), before publishing adult fiction. Since her first adult novel was published only in 1983, when she was 71, she may be regarded as a late bloomer. The publication of Jumping the Queue in 1983 was the beginning of an intensely creative period of Wesley's life. From 1982 to 1991, she wrote and delivered seven novels. While she aged from 70 to 79 she still showed the focus and drive of a young person.
Her best known book, The Camomile Lawn, set on the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall, was turned into a television series, and is an account of the intertwining lives of three families in rural England during World War II. After The Camomile Lawn (1984) came Harnessing Peacocks (1985 and as TV film in 1992), The Vacillations of Poppy Carew (1986 and filmed in 1995), Not That Sort of Girl (1987), Second Fiddle (1988), A Sensible Life (1990), A Dubious Legacy (1993), An Imaginative Experience (1994) and Part of the Furniture (1997). A book about the West Country with photographer Kim Sayer, Part of the Scenery, was published in 2001. Asked why she had stopped writing fiction at the age of 84, she replied: "If you haven't got anything to say, don't say it.

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Read free novels online: Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

Sister Carrie (1900) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser about a young country girl who moves to the big city where she starts realizing her own American Dream by first becoming a mistress to men that she perceives as superior and later as a famous actress. It has been called the "greatest of all American urban novels. (from goodreads.com)

About the Author
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist. He pioneered the naturalist school and is known for portraying characters whose value lies not in their moral code, but in their persistence against all obstacles, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency. (from goodreads.com)

Chapter I: The Magnet Attracting--A Waif Amid Forces
Chapter II: What Poverty Threatened--Of Granite And Brass
Chapter III: Wee Question Of Fortune--Four-Fifty A Week
Chapter IV: The Spendings Of Fancy--Facts Answer With Sneers
Chapter V: A Glittering Night Flower--The Use Of A Name
Chapter VI: The Machine And The Maiden--A Knight Of To-Day
Chapter VII: The Lure Of The Material--Beauty Speaks For Itself
Chapter VIII: Intimations By Winter--An Ambassador Summoned
Chapter IX: Convention's Own Tinder-Box--The Eye That Is Green
Chapter X: The Counsel Of Winter--Fortune's Ambassador Calls
Chapter XI: The Persuasion Of Fashion--Feeling Guards O'er Its Own
Chapter XII: Of The Lamps Of The Mansions--The Ambassador Plea
Chapter XIII: His Credentials Accepted--A Babel Of Tongues
Chapter XIV: With Eyes And Not Seeing--One Influence Wanes
Chapter XV: The Irk Of The Old Ties--The Magic Of Youth
Chapter XVI: A Witless Aladdin--The Gate To The World
Chapter XVII: A Glimpse Through The Gateway--Hope Lightens The Eye
Chapter XVIII: Just Over The Border--A Hail And Farewell
Chapter XIX: An Hour In Elfland--A Clamour Half Heard
Chapter XX: The Lure Of The Spirit--The Flesh In Pursuit
Chapter XXI: The Lure Of The Spirit--The Flesh In Pursuit
Chapter XXII: The Blaze Of The Tinder--Flesh Wars With The Flesh
Chapter XXIII: A Spirit In Travail--One Rung Put Behind
Chapter XXIV: Ashes Of Tinder--A Face At The Window
Chapter XXV: Ashes Of Tinder--The Loosing Of Stays
Chapter XXVI: The Ambassador Fallen--A Search For The Gate
Chapter XXVII: When Waters Engulf Us We Reach For A Star
Chapter XXVIII: A Pilgrim, An Outlaw--The Spirit Detained
Chapter XXIX: The Solace Of Travel--The Boats Of The Sea
Chapter XXX: The Kingdom Of Greatness--The Pilgrim A Dream
Chapter XXXI: A Pet Of Good Fortune--Broadway Flaunts Its Joys
Chapter XXXII: The Feast Of Belshazzar--A Seer To Translate
Chapter XXXIII: Without The Walled City--The Slope Of The Years
Chapter XXXIV: The Grind Of The Millstones--A Sample Of Chaff
Chapter XXXV: The Passing Of Effort--The Visage Of Care
Chapter XXXVI: A Grim Retrogression--The Phantom Of Chance
Chapter XXXVII: The Spirit Awakens--New Search For The Gate
Chapter XXXVIII: In Elf Land Disporting--The Grim World Without
Chapter XXXIX: Of Lights And Of Shadows--The Parting Of Worlds
Chapter XL: A Public Dissension--A Final Appeal
Chapter XLI: The Strike
Chapter XLII: A Touch Of Spring--The Empty Shell
Chapter XLIII: The World Turns Flatterer--An Eye In The Dark
Chapter XLIV: And This Is Not Elf Land--What Gold Will Not Buy
Chapter XLV: Curious Shifts Of The Poor
Chapter XLVI: Stirring Troubled Waters
Chapter XLVII: The Way Of The Beaten--A Harp In The Wind






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Read free novels online: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The story tells of Charles Marlow, an Englishman who took a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Although Conrad does not give the name of the river, at the time, Congo Free State, the location of the large and important Congo River was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver. However, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization, in a cover-up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region. This symbolic story is a story within a story or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts from dusk through to late night, to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary his Congolese adventure. The passage of time and the darkening sky during the fictitious narrative-within-the-narrative parallel the atmosphere of the story. (from goodreads.com)

About the Author
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) was a Polish-born English novelist who today is most famous for Heart of Darkness, his fictionalized account of Colonial Africa.

Conrad left his native Poland in his middle teens to avoid conscription into the Russian Army. He joined the French Merchant Marine and briefly employed himself as a wartime gunrunner. He then began to work aboard British ships, learning English from his shipmates. He was made a Master Mariner, and served more than sixteen years before an event inspired him to try his hand at writing.

He was hired to take a steamship into Africa, and according to Conrad, the experience of seeing firsthand the horrors of colonial rule left him a changed man. His introspective need to come to terms with his experience lead to Heart of Darkness, which was followed by other fictionalized explorations of his life.

He has been lauded as one of the most powerful, insightful, and disturbing novelists in the English canon despite coming to English later in life, which allowed him to combine it with the sensibilities of French, Russian, and Polish literature.

Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III







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