Author: Cynthia Voigt Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 0689311230 Category : Juvenile Nonfiction Languages : en Pages : 312
Book Description
When hard times among the People revive the old stories of the hero Jackaroo, an innkeeper's daughter follows her own quest to unlock the secret reality behind the legend.
Author: Gwyn Hyman Rubio Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1101200189 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 337
Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book and the March 2001 selection of Oprah's Book Club® ! Icy Sparks is the sad, funny and transcendent tale of a young girl growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky during the 1950’s. Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s beautifully written first novel revolves around Icy Sparks, an unforgettable heroine in the tradition of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird or Will Treed in Cold Sassy Tree. At the age of ten, Icy, a bright, curious child orphaned as a baby but raised by adoring grandparents, begins to have strange experiences. Try as she might, her "secrets"—verbal croaks, groans, and physical spasms—keep afflicting her. As an adult, she will find out she has Tourette’s Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, but for years her behavior is the source of mystery, confusion, and deep humiliation. Narrated by a grown up Icy, the book chronicles a difficult, but ultimately hilarious and heartwarming journey, from her first spasms to her self-acceptance as a young woman. Curious about life beyond the hills, talented, and energetic, Icy learns to cut through all barriers—physical, mental, and spiritual—in order to find community and acceptance. Along her journey, Icy faces the jeers of her classmates as well as the malevolence of her often-ignorant teachers—including Mrs. Stilton, one of the most evil fourth grade teachers ever created by a writer. Called willful by her teachers and "Frog Child" by her schoolmates, she is exiled from the schoolroom and sent to a children’s asylum where it is hoped that the roots of her mysterious behavior can be discovered. Here Icy learns about difference—her own and those who are even more scarred than she. Yet, it isn’t until Icy returns home that she really begins to flower, especially through her friendship with the eccentric and obese Miss Emily, who knows first-hand how it feels to be an outcast in this tightly knit Appalachian community. Under Miss Emily’s tutelage, Icy learns about life’s struggles and rewards, survives her first comical and heartbreaking misadventure with romance, discovers the healing power of her voice when she sings, and ultimately—takes her first steps back into the world. Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s Icy Sparks is a fresh, original, and completely redeeming novel about learning to overcome others’ ignorance and celebrate the differences that make each of us unique.
Author: Gwyn Thomas Publisher: Victor Gollancz ISBN: 9780575053397 Category : Folklore Languages : en Pages : 64
Book Description
A retelling of the Welsh legends about Gwion, a peasant lad who accidentally drank three drops from a witch's brew and was reborn as Taliesin, the great Welsh poet. Suggested level: intermediate, junior secondary.
Author: Aaron Gwyn Publisher: Europa Editions ISBN: 1609456351 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 334
Book Description
This sweeping novel set in the province of Texas is “a powerful depiction of the rough realities of frontier life [and] the vicious influence of racism” (The New York Times). Finalist for the Reading the West Book Award for Fiction In 1827, Duncan Lammons, a disgraced young man from Kentucky, sets out to join the American army in the province of Texas, hoping that here he may live—and love—as he pleases. That same year, Cecelia, a young slave in Virginia, runs away for the first time. Soon infamous for her escape attempts, Cecelia continues to drift through the reality of slavery—until she encounters frontiersman Sam Fisk, who rescues her from a slave auction in New Orleans. In spite of her mistrust, Cecelia senses an opportunity for freedom, and travels with Sam to Texas, where he has a homestead. In this new territory, where the law is an instrument for the cruel and the wealthy, they begin an unlikely life together, unaware that their fates are intertwined with those of Sam’s former army mates, including Duncan Lammons, a friend—and others who harbor dangerous dreams of their own. This “swift and skillful Western” takes its place among the great stories that recount the country’s fight for freedom—one that makes us want to keep on with the struggle (The Wall Street Journal). “Gwyn creates an overwhelmingly visceral and emotionally rich narrative amid Texas’s complex path to statehood . . . This is a masterpiece of western fiction in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and James Carlos Blake.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “It’s always a pleasure to discover another superb writer who had not been on my radar . . . many scenes pulse with tension, tenderness or both.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
Author: Aaron Gwyn Publisher: Algonquin Books ISBN: 156512412X Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 230
Book Description
A man miraculously survives a fall from the eighth floor of a drilling rig but is ever after plagued by an unwillingness to live. A preacher loses his ability to speak in tongues and begins to fake it. A young man is intent on suppressing his sinful love for his best friend even though he can think of nothing else. A teenage boy struggles with the temptation of a young girl. A grandmother will stop at nothing to make her grandson famous. These are some of the good citizens of Perser, Oklahoma. And in Aaron Gwyn's debut collection, the people of Perser are unpredictable and unforgettable as they struggle with lapses into sin during the week a young faith healer comes to town. In his careful articulation of faith and doubt, sin and self-delusion, allegiance to the church and self-glorification, Gwyn reveals himself as a writer of great heart and complexity, creating a world that burns with pain, love, and an odd kind of devotion.
Author: Gwyn Cready Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1439171483 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 452
Book Description
RITA Award–winning author Gwyn Cready continues the “sexy fun” (BookPage) of her charming time-travel adventures with a high-spirited tale of a modern-day mapmaker and the eighteenth-century English navy captain she can’t resist. Ambitious and feisty Josephine “Joss” O’Malley has spent years fighting to keep her mother’s map-making company alive. Just when she finds herself considering taking a risky next step with bad-boy entrepreneur Rogan Reynolds— whose generosity has helped keep the business afloat—Joss meets dark and mysterious Hugh Hawksmoor. Hugh’s deft touch and old-world seduction stir Joss’s desires like a storm at sea, and she has no clue that he has sailed three hundred years into the future to avenge the death of his brother at the hands of her father. Or that she holds the key to a map that will help him undo the destructive changes her father wrought in the past. When Hugh lures Joss into a treacherous journey through time, there’s not a twenty-first-century trick that can save her. But when she applies her own instincts to a course she thought was set, she discovers that the high seas hold some scandalous surprises.
Author: Cynthia Voigt Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1439115893 Category : Juvenile Fiction Languages : en Pages : 420
Book Description
There are some who say that the Lady Fortune has a wheel, and all men are fixed upon it. The wheel turns, and the men rise, or fall, with the turning of the wheel. Birle has agreed to be wed to the huntsman Muir as an escape from the drudgery of life at her father’s inn—but the moment she looks into the bellflower blue eyes of the man she comes upon stealing one of her father’s boats, Birle knows she cannot marry Muir. Even after she discovers the mysterious stranger is Orien, a Lord and as unreachable to an innkeeper’s daughter as a star, Birle is determined to travel with him as far as he will allow. Their travels take Birle to a world far from home, a world where Lords may become slaves, where Princes rule by fear, and where Fortune’s Wheel turns more swiftly and dangerously than Birle could have imagined. Newberry Medalist Cynthia Voigt’s second novel of the Kingdom, set two generations later than Jackaroo, is a memorable combination of thrilling adventure and heart-stopping romance.
Author: Charles Beauclerk Publisher: ISBN: 9781910670385 Category : Languages : en Pages : 618
Book Description
Charles Beauclerk brings to this book on his ancestress a rich and deep knowledge of the period conveyed in warm, unstuffy and amusing style' Daily Mail 'Succeeds in capturing Nell Gwyn's vivacity, originality and essential sweetness' - The Guardian 'Beauclerk tells Nell's story with obvious relish... a biography that feels like a good long gossip' - The Mail on Sunday Revealing and entertaining.' The Literary Review 'Beauclerk paints a lively and detailed picture of Restoration London... very enjoyable.' - The Independent "Mr. Beauclerk writes of a time when, if it was good to be a king, it was good to be his mistress too. He does not fashionably cut his characters down to modem size-and is himself directly descended from the union of Charles II and Nell Gwyn, of which he writes with such humor, spirit, and erudition." - FAY WELDON "Shining beauty and dazzling wit brought orange-seller Nell Gwyn to the attention of Charles II. For seventeen years, as lovers and loyal friends, the two shared the pleasures of the bed and the play, of falconry, fishing, and walking in the woods at night. Charles Beauclerk has the blood of Nell and Charles in his veins, and, through his easy, erudite pen, Restoration England comes alive. A book to be savored, slowly." - GILLIAN GILL, AUTHOR OF NIGHTINGALES: THE EXTRAORDINARY UPBRINGING AND CURIOUS LIFE OF MISS FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE "As well as being a cracking good read, this is both a scholarly, sympathetic, mature, and thought-provoking biography of our finest folk heroine and a well-rounded portrait of Restoration England." -HUGH MASSINGBERD, THE SPECTATOR "Charles Beauclerk's grasp of Restoration literature and culture is impressive and there is nothing he doesn't know about the politics. . . . Nell Gwyn has about it a humanity, empathy, and freshness of which his subject would undoubtedly approve." -FRANCES WILSON, THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH "Charles Beauclerk interweaves the development of Nell's character with a vivid portrayal of the social worlds of court and stage, in which she played such a memorable part. In spite of his obvious affection for his ancestress, he provides a well-rounded view of her character and an objective account of the role she played as a woman who crossed the social boundaries and created an unforgettable, romantic comedy in her life as well as in her art." - BETKA ZAMOYSKA, THE LITERARY REVIEW "Beauclerk tells Nell's story with obvious relish. He is particularly good on the odd mind-set of Stuart England." - KATHRYN HUGHES, THE MAIL ON SUNDAY Beautiful, quick-witted and sexually magnetic, Nell Gwyn remains one of England's great folk-heroines. The story of her exceptional rise from an impoverished, abusive childhood, to the wealth and connections that came with being Charles II's mistress is a dramatic mix of lust, money, high politics and love. Famously spotted selling oranges in the Theatre Royal, Drury Line, Nell's wit and charm brought her to the attention of one of the theatre's leading actors. Under his patronage, she soon established herself as the greatest comedienne of her day, and so caught the eye of Charles II, the newly restored 'merry monarch' of a nation in hedonistic reaction to puritan rule. Their seventeen-year affair is one of the great love stories of our history, played out against a backdrop of fire, plague, court intrigue and political turmoil. This vivid, personal portrayal brilliantly recreates the licentious, yet politically charged atmosphere of Charles II's court and casts fresh light on the real Nell Gwyn, on Charles and on the restoration period.
Author: Cynthia Voigt
Author: Cynthia Voigt
Author: Gwyn Hyman Rubio
Author: Gwyn Thomas
Author: Aaron Gwyn
Author: Gwyn Thomas
Author: Aaron Gwyn
Author: Gwyn Cready
Author: Cynthia Voigt
Author: Charles Beauclerk